Many of us can play a simple tune on the piano. If we want to actually play the piano, though, that takes practice. Mike Kelly shows some simple techniques that can help you to get away from being a "one-tune tester" to developing real testing skills through practice.

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Dr. Richard Restak devotes a large section of his book The New Brain: How
the Modern Age Is Rewiring Your Mind (Rodale Books, 2003) to the topic of
practice. When talking about a person's true potential, he cites the
research of Florida State University psychologist Anders Ericsson. Ericsson,
studying "superior performers" in various fields, has found that the
key ingredient to superior performance turns out to be one's willingness to
"stretch yourself to the limit and increase your control over your
performance."

That means practice.

This article provides a list of possible ways in which you might practice
your software testing. I've included references or examples where I think
they might be helpful. This is by no means an exhaustive list; it's some
ways in which I or the people who reviewed this article practice. If you
practice in some way that's not on this list, I strongly encourage you to
add a comment at the end of this article, sharing that experience and some
resources to help others get started.

Focusing Your Practice

Restak writes, "[For superior performers,] the goal isn't just
repeating the same thing again and again but achieving higher levels of control
over every aspect of their performance. That's why they don't find
practice boring. Each practice session, they are working on doing something
better than they did the last time."

For example, a musician doesn't play a scale repeatedly just for the
sake of playing the scale. When I repeat a scale while playing the guitar,
it's not so I'll learn the scale; I know the scale. It's so I can
get my fingers to know the scale. I want them to move faster and with
more confidence. I'm attempting to achieve a higher level of control over
my performance. If I can better develop my fingering technique on that scale, I
can better control my fingering in other aspects of my playing.

Each time you practice testing, you should be interested in doing some
specific thing better. By improving one specific technique at a time, you
gradually improve your overall ability over time. In music, I might focus on a
specific song for an hour, or a specific type of music (jazz, rock, ska...). The
focus of that practice is not the repetition of that specific song or style of
music; the focus is on improving a specific aspect of what I'm practicing
(speed, technique, experimenting with pedals or amplifiers, and so on). A
generic goal of practicing just to "play better" isn't practical.
To be more effective in my practice, I need to focus on one specific thing and
do that thing better.